1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to modular swimming pool structures More particularly, it relates to cavity-defining pool structures which are used with a water impermeable liner and which may installed either in-ground or above-ground.
2. Prior Art
The prior art in this field is legion and it would be indeed presumptuous to attempt an objective evaluation thereof herein. There is, of course, a large body or art with respect to permanent in-ground pools of concrete construction which is of only peripheral interest. The relevant prior art has to do with above-ground and in-ground pools made of metallic structural components which have as their object the provision of a cavity to receive and support a water impermeable liner. The art has moved in this direction out of a desire to avoid the labor and expense inherent in erection of concrete pools. Use of prefabricated sub-assemblies and assemblies permits quick and easy erection in the field by relatively unskilled labor.
However, there is, regardless of construction, the need to offer the consumer a variety of choices. These extend not only to obvious parameters like pool dimensions but also to the shape of the pool and to basic variables like whether the pool is to be above-ground or in-ground. Attemps have therefore been made to design modular structures wherein the same elements can be used over and over again regardless of the ultimate nature of the pool desired.
Prior art approaches are exemplified by Adam et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,440,780; Lerner U.S. Pat. No. 3,016,546; Diemond et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,274,621; and the other patents cited in connection with the parent application, referred to above, which patents are incorporated herein by reference.
Examination of these references reveals that there has been no universal system disclosed good for above-ground or in-ground pools; for linear or arcuate configurations; for pools with integral decks and without integral decks. Further, the bracing and buttressing necessary to resist the forces caused by the water in the pool (as exemplified in Pereira U.S. Pat. No. 3,416,165) is painfully obvious and necessitates the use of many extra support members. But most of all, there has been a minimal attempt at economy by the use of repetitive extrusions so that the same extrusion, for example, can be used for vertical wall boards and for deck boards for a ground bearing member and for a coping member and in other such interchangeable paired relationships.